Primary results usually stick, Alabama records show

MONTGOMERY -- Alabamians have voted in 10 primary runoff elections for governor since World War II, and in eight of those 10 runoffs the candidate who led the primary voting a few weeks earlier got the most votes in the runoff, state records show.

Political scientist William Stewart said people like voting for a winner, so many who backed an also-ran in a primary jump on the leader's bandwagon.

"I think it's the desire to get with the winner, and the winner is the one who came in first, even though he needed a runoff to culminate or validate a win," said Stewart, the retired head of the University of Alabama's political science department.

Former Lt. Gov. Bill Baxley, who ran in two runoffs for governor, said leading a primary race can be seen as part of a voting trend, "and usually trends are hard to stop."

Baxley added that, as a rule, "The guy that is in front is going to get the money and get the support of people who want to be with the winner."

But the lopsided historical record favoring the leading primary vote-getters may not play out in the July 13 Republican runoff for governor, in part because the June 1 primary election was so close, said Baxley, Stewart and others.

Former two-year college chancellor Bradley Byrne led the primary, winning 27.89 percent of the certified vote. But state Rep. Robert Bentley of Tuscaloosa ran a close second, with 25.15 percent. Byrne led Bentley by 13,493 votes out of 492,897 cast.

"In terms of people deciding which candidate to support, they wouldn't automatically assume that, 'Byrne's certainly going to win and I want to be on the winning side,'" Stewart said.

Former Lt. Gov. George McMillan agreed. "I'm not sure that trends that have applied in the past necessarily apply this year," said McMillan, who in 1982 lost a close Democratic runoff for governor.

Former Gov. George Wallace led the five-person primary that year with 42.53 percent of the vote. McMillan, who was lieutenant governor, placed second with 29.62 percent. McMillan made up ground, but Wallace won the runoff with 51.19 percent of the vote.

Former state Republican Party Chairman Winton Blount III said that, as a rule, if a primary leader had a 40 percent to 25 percent margin over the second-place finisher, he or she "would have a very good chance" of winning the runoff.

Blount said being the incumbent governor also can help win a runoff, since a governor's administration can hand out grants and a governor has high name recognition.

Blount lost the 1998 Republican runoff for governor to then-Gov. Fob James, who led the primary that year with 47.95 percent of the vote. Blount had 41.21 percent. James won the runoff with 55.76 percent of the vote.

Baxley said this year's Republican runoff reminds him of the Democratic 1978 race for governor. James, a businessman who was then a Democrat, led a 13-person primary that year with 28.47 percent of the vote. Baxley finished second with 23.35 percent.

James beat Baxley in the runoff with 55.17 percent of the vote.

Baxley said James when he first started running was barely a blip on the radar screen. While better-known candidates wrangled among themselves, "Fob just went his own way," Baxley recalled. "But he had plenty of money and went around in an old school bus and had plenty of good ads."

"I see a lot of parallels to Fob in 1978 and Bentley this year, both of them just coming out of nowhere," Baxley said.

'Old-fashioned' race

Former Gov. James said he has no idea whether Byrne or Bentley will win the July 13 runoff.

But he said supporters of two other candidates in the June 1 Republican primary for governor, his son Tim James, who won 25.12 percent of the certified vote, and former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who won 19.31 percent, could decide the winner -- if they don't stay home.

"I don't know (that) anybody could predict where Roy's votes and Tim's votes will go," James said. "It's just a good, old-fashioned governor's race down in Alabama. To say how this one goes, who knows?"

The first exception to the primary-leader-wins-the-runoff trend in Alabama governor's races since World War II came in 1970. Albert Brewer, who was elected lieutenant governor in 1966 and became governor in 1968 upon the death of Gov. Lurleen Wallace, placed first among seven candidates in the Democratic primary, with 41.99 percent of the vote. Former Gov. George Wallace finished second, with 40.84 percent. Brewer led by 11,703 votes out of 1,019,680 cast.

In the runoff, Wallace won 51.56 percent of the vote.

Stewart said Wallace ran a dirty, racist runoff. "Wallace was able to win by practicing anything-goes politics," Stewart said. "He desperately wanted to be back in office so he could have the governorship as launching pad for his next presidential campaign."

The second exception came in 1986. Baxley led a five-person race in the Democratic primary with 36.80 percent of the vote. Attorney General Charles Graddick finished second with 29.33 percent.

Graddick won the runoff with 50.47 percent of the vote. But state Democratic Party officials named Baxley the nominee, finding that people who voted in the Republican primary and then crossed over to vote in the Democratic runoff, contrary to Democratic Party rules, provided Graddick's winning margin.

State voters reacted that November by electing Guy Hunt to be Alabama's first Republican governor since Reconstruction.